


His Reasons

by e_wills



Category: How to Train Your Dragon (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Post-GOTNF, and badly written at that, gratuitous fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-09
Updated: 2018-06-09
Packaged: 2019-05-20 06:24:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14889320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/e_wills/pseuds/e_wills
Summary: Hiccup lays out just some of the many reasons he loves Astrid.





	His Reasons

Three months had passed since Snoggletog. Berk was no warmer than it had been in the height of its holiday season; but there had been significant changes elsewhere: in personal affairs, that had Astrid smiling through the shorter days and the long, bitter nights. She spent a lot of extra time at the forge, but nobody questioned it. Hiccup knew better than most why she hung around the smithy, talking about dragons and stitching her winter clothes while he filled orders. 

They had shared a pointed conversation while the festive lights were still up, and the village rode the high of the dragons’ return. He had looked startled, unprepared for her direct interrogation with his head still fuzzy with holiday ale. Admittedly, she had cornered him in the mead hall, asking direction questions he was slow to answer around a mouthful of meat pie. Only when she was certain he could distinguish between true affection an teenage infatuation, and that his own feelings for her leaned toward the latter, did she declare that he could be entrusted with her heart should he want it. He was bewildered, but disinclined to refuse her; and delighted once his brain caught up to her intentions.

The two of them were seen together more often than they were not in the weeks that had followed. Girlfriend, boyfriend: those were words other people used. Hiccup and Astrid didn’t care much for labels. They knew what they were, and preferred to call each other by name—until Astrid let “babe” slip; she had never seen Hiccup smile quite like that.

Sure, they were “together” and “dating”—whatever that meant to everyone else, plus a little bit more. People quickly stopped staring and whispering as they passed, accepting it as they had come to accept dragons living among them. They were old news now.

Only one person didn’t seem to understand. Obtuse, or maybe just in denial, Snotlout had doubled down on his efforts to woo Astrid. His presence around the smithy increased as her did, but he was far less welcome, touching all the weapons and making a boisterous, swaggering nuisance of himself.

“And I hit the target dead center—YAH!” He was gripping a spear, and he thrust it at some invisible foe.

Astrid rolled her eyes. Snotlout kept grinning wide enough for the both of them.

“That one’s not finished,” Hiccup interjected, reclaiming the spear from his cousin’s fist.

Snotlout scowled and flashed a rude hand gesture at his back, which Hiccup must’ve felt with the exasperated sigh he gave.

“Come on, Astrid. Even you have to admit that was impressive against a moving target,” Snotlout said, wrapping a beefy arm around her shoulder.

She snorted and shrugged him off. “What’s impressive, Snotlout, is that you think anything you say might actually impress me.”

“Hey, I’m doing my best, here! My A-game!”

“I didn’t think you even had an A-game,” Hiccup muttered from his workbench, and Astrid snickered.

“Yeah? Well I didn’t ask you, did I?” Snotlout frowned, sincere enough that Astrid almost felt a twinge of pity. He grasped her hand and she reflexively yanked it away. Pouting, the next three words out of his mouth were a plea; a desperate, “I love you!”

The smithy was silent except for Gobber’s grunts as he hobbled around, determinedly ignoring the teenage melodrama unfolding in his place of business.

Astrid tried not to laugh at the notion that Snotlout believed his shallow desires to be genuine. Even some rare moments with the mutton-head required some tact.

“Love me?” she replied. “Snotlout, your ‘love’ only goes skin-deep.”

“That’s not true!”

She folded her arms. “Okay, then. Prove it.”

He recoiled. “What?”

Even Hiccup seemed perplexed, glancing over his shoulder with a quirked brow.

“Right here, right now; prove you love me. Tell me what you love about me—and you cannot mention my appearance,” she explained.

“Wha—well that’s not fair! How am I supposed to come up with a list like that, off the top of my head?”

He paled, glancing around for some kind of answer floating in the ether.

Astrid shook her head. “You’re not helping your case.”

He licked his lips, stroking his chin as his skin reddened around his collar. “I—Okay! Okay, give me a moment…”

“I love you because you’re fun—and funny. I’ve never met anyone who makes my heart race like you do,” Hiccup spoke up. Snotlout whipped around and Astrid’s breath hitched. She felt her chest tighten as Hiccup turned, advancing with a calm confidence that made Snotlout fidget. He continued, “You’re smart, clever, wise—no, Snotlout, those aren’t all the same thing.”

Snotlout’s mouth snapped shut and he glared.

Hiccup was looking at her like he sometimes did when they were alone; like he saw nothing else, because in that moment, there wasn’t anything else but her that could hold him in such rapt attention.

“I can talk to you about anything, tell you anything, and ask you anything; because I know your reply will often be insightful, well-informed, or profound. Or you’ll simple give me the dose of reality I need when I need it most. I love you because you care what I have to say, hanging onto my every word like I hang on to yours. I love you because you’re strong and determined, but can bend and compromise. You’re passionate, and I like that—even when it manifests and anger or shifting moods that I can’t quite understand, that leave my head spinning, it doesn’t diminish the way I feel about you.”

Astrid’s heart fluttered in her chest. Part of her wanted him to go on forever, and another part want him to stop before she dissolved on the smithy floor, overcome and useless for the rest of her days.

But Hiccup kept talking and she was weak for it. Maybe it was her pride; and maybe it was the way his voice embraced her, every time he said those three weighted words.

“Conversely, you can be warm—more like a hearthplace than a wildfire. It’s strange and amazing, and I can’t figure you out—but I don’t want to. I love you, Astrid, because you’re constant, dependable, and with more integrity that probably half of this village put together. If I didn’t have you, these winter nights would be a whole lot darker.”

A hearty chuckle from Gobber pierced the resounding silence that followed, and all three teens forced the man back to his work with stares of varying degrees of indignation.

Hiccup glanced down at the hammer in his hand, tapping it against his right palm for something to do. Even with his eyes downcast and the glow of the forge, Astrid could see the color rising to his face and practically burning in his ears. “So, uh…yeah. All that…among…other things.”

He returned to his workbench, cluttered with organized chaos like he was, leaving Astrid to gaze after him fondly. She bit her lip, insides feeling particularly warm and liquefied. Snotlout, however, stood there with his mouth agape.

She turned to him, smug. “Well?”

After a moment of contemplation, he clicked his tongue. “I hope you two are happy together,” he said in a tone that suggested he felt anything but.

He strode off, shoulders slumped in what Astrid dared to believe might be his final defeat. When he was gone into the darkness, she turned toward Hiccup, who was back at work—though he moved a bit slower and stood too rigidly.

Astrid grinned, sidling up to him from behind. He jumped only a little as she wrapped her arms around his waist. Her chin rest on his shoulder as she peered over him.

“What are you working on, babe?”

His face was soft, and he gave her that disarming smile that belonged to her alone.


End file.
